Bioinformatics Support Services

ANNOUNCEMENT NUMBER : HHS-NIH-NHLBI-CSB-AR-2013-104-CSP POST DATE : March 4, 2013 CLOSING DATE : March 10, 2013 PROPOSED AWARD DATE : April 1, 2013 Title : Bioinformatics Support Services Project Title or General Description: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) on behalf of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), is seeking sources to provide Bioinformatics Support Services. This SOURCES SOUGHT (SS) is being issued to help determine the availability of qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP), NOR IS IT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION (RFQ). It is not to be construed as a commitment by the requesting party to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this SS. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by interested parties in responding to this SS. This FedBizOpps SS is strictly for market research purposes only. As a result of this SS, the Government may issue a RFQ, however, should such requirements materialize, no basis for claims against the Government shall arise as a result of a response to the SS. The North American Classification System (NAICS) code applicable to this requirement is 541690 - Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services and the associated small business size standard is $14.0 Million. Based on the responses received from this SOURCES SOUGHT announcement, the NHLBI may conduct a competitive procurement. All eligible companies responding to this SS Announcement must have the capabilities to provide the below services upon receipt of contract. Statement of Work: Background: The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), Intramural Research Program (IRP), is one of the nation's premier research institutions in the area of basic and clinical research efforts in rheumatic, other inflammatory disorders, autoimmune diseases, and has a state of the art clinical research hospital. Contractor Requirements: - Collaborate closely with investigators and provide bioinformatics support to ongoing research projects that use NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) and other biotechnologies towards the scientific and therapeutic discoveries for a variety of autoimmune, muscle, and bone diseases. - Develop and implement customized bioinformatics solutions needed to process and analyze high dimensional and large scale biomedical data such as those from ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq. - Perform data process and data analysis with existing computational and statistical methods. - Participate in and contribute to data analysis result presentation and discussion. - Provide consultation for lab researchers on data analysis strategies and tactics. - Share expertise with researchers on popular computational tools. - Conduct computational research for better understanding of RNA-Seq and developing more efficient data analysis methods. - Test and implement published RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq data analysis approaches. - Evaluate emerging methods and techniques in the rapidly evolving field of applied bioinformatics and computational biology. The contractor must have: - Ph.D. degree in Biology, Life Sciences or a related discipline. - Degree or training in computer science or bioinformatics. - Working experience with processing and analyzing RNA-Seq/ChIP-Seq data from Illumina's HiSeq2000 or similar platforms. - Working experience with Linux, Bash, and Python. - Strong communications skills, both oral and written. - Excellent organizational and time management skills. Period of Performance: April 1, 2013 through March 31, 2014, the level of effort is 1250 hours. This work may also be performed remotely at the discretion of the IC, NIAMS. Travel will also be involved. Additional Information: The contractor shall provide documentation evidence of any and/or all work product, including, but not limited to, the following tasks: - Work products and documents related to processing NGS data. - Work products and documents related to analyzing RNA-Seq/ChIP-Seq data. - Work products and documents related to conducting computational research. - Work products and documents related to developing computational tools. Companies that can perform the requirement above are requested to submit a tailored capability statement for this requirement, not to exceed 20 single-sided pages (including all attachments, resumes, data, etc.) presented in single-space and using a 12-point font size minimum, that clearly details the ability to perform the task (s) as described above. The capability statement shall include the following: 1. Name and identify your size and type of business (i.e. Large Business; Small Business; Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB); Woman-owned Small Businesses (WOSB); Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone); Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSB); and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB]; 2. If subcontractors will be utilized, the name of company(ies), and a point of contact for the company (name, phone number, fax number and email address); 3. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. All capability Statements sent in response to this SOURCES SOUGHT notice must be submitted electronically (via email) to Caitlin Palmer, Contract Specialist, at caitlin.palmer@nih.gov in either MS Word or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), by March 10, 2013 by 5:00 p.m. EST. All responses must be received by the specified due date and time in order to be considered.